by Matt Lincoln
There was a manic edge to his voice, and his eyes were shifting between the two of us desperately.
“Of course we are,” Naomi nodded. “It’s all thanks to you that we were able to find out what we were dealing with. But look at you. You’re hurt, aren’t you?”
Naomi stepped confidently toward Howard. He tensed as she approached him, and for a moment, I was scared that he might attack her.
“Why don’t you come sit down?” Naomi smiled at him after tutting over his leg for a few seconds. She placed a gentle arm on his back and guided him toward one of the few chairs left upright in the bullpen. “We should really get you to a hospital, Agent Howard. This looks like a nasty injury.”
As she spoke, I chanced a look toward Nelson’s office door. Fiona had told me that was where they were taking cover. I looked away before Howard could notice my gaze.
“Yeah,” Howard mumbled. “It does hurt a little.”
“I’m certain it does,” Naomi nodded. “We’ll take you to the hospital, alright, Agent Howard? But first, I need to put these on you.”
Naomi pulled a pair of handcuffs from her bag, and Howard’s eyes went wide.
“No!” he yelled as he shrank away from her. “I’m not a criminal! I’m not putting those on!”
I shifted my body so that Howard wouldn’t see me reaching for my gun. I didn’t want to hurt one of my fellow agents, but I wasn’t about to let him attack my partner.
“Agent Howard,” Naomi commanded his attention in a tone that left no room for argument. “Listen to me. You are a brilliant scientist. Out of all the people in this office, no, in this country, no one knows more about the details of this drug than you do. Which means you know better than anyone else about what kind of side effects it can have.”
She was laying it on so thick that I was sure Howard would dismiss her. On the contrary, though, he seemed to be lapping it up.
“Yeah,” he nodded slowly. “I do know what the side effects are.”
“So you know why I need to put these on,” Naomi continued as she slowly slipped one of the handcuffs onto Howard’s wrist. “Hallucinations, paranoia, extreme aggression. You know that you might hurt someone without even meaning to. Then there’s the fact that most of the people who take this drug wind up dead. We need to get you to the hospital, Agent Howard. But they won’t let us in unless you have these on.”
I watched as she clicked the handcuffs into place, amazed at how quickly she’d diffused the situation. Once I felt confident that he was subdued, I rushed over to Nelson’s office and knocked.
“Fiona, are you okay?” I called. “It’s Miranda.”
The door swung open, but to my surprise, it wasn’t Fiona who answered, but Nelson.
“What’s going on out there?” Nelson asked as he peered around me.
“Naomi’s got it under control,” I replied as I scanned the room. Fiona was sitting off to the side against a bookshelf. She was pale, and her skin was slick with sweat.
“Hey,” she smiled at me weakly.
“She’s in rough shape,” Nelson informed me. “Howard managed to attack her before I could intervene. Her clavicle is broken, but I’m not sure what other injuries she might have.”
“Are you serious?” I demanded angrily. “Why didn’t you call for an ambulance?
“I didn’t want them to hurt Howard,” she argued. “Or for him to hurt anyone else.”
I let out a frustrated sigh before leaning down to examine her. Fiona was kind and selfless to a fault. I couldn’t believe she’d prioritized the well-being of her attacker over her own medical needs.
The office was dark, but even in the low light of the room, I could make out a distinct lump just beneath her right shoulder. A large patch of skin spanning from her neck to her chest was an angry red color, and I had no doubt the entire area would be a mottled, ugly purple by the next day.
“I’ll call an ambulance.” I frowned as I stood up to fish my phone from my pocket. As I did, I doubled back toward the open door to check on Howard and Naomi. She was still speaking to him calmly, and it looked as though Howard was crying. The fact that he was calm now made me suspect that maybe it wasn’t the cough syrup that he took but a dose of rush. Penny, the girl who’d attacked her boyfriend, had similarly lost control but then later felt remorse after she’d come down from the effects of the drug.
“Nine-one-one, where is your emergency?” A voice cut through my thoughts as the call connected.
“Hi,” I responded. “I need an ambulance at the MBLIS Las Vegas office.”
I rattled off the address of our building and gave the woman on the other end of the line the details of Fiona’s injury.
“Is the assailant still there?” The nine-one-one operator asked. “Do you need me to send police as well?”
I hesitated before answering. My knee-jerk reaction was to say yes. Of course we needed the police. But Fiona had sat there suffering so that she wouldn’t have to call them, and Howard himself seemed to feel genuinely remorseful over what he’d done if the fat tears currently rolling down his face were any indication.
“No,” I lied. “He’s not here anymore. We just need an ambulance as fast as possible, please.”
“It’s on its way,” the woman replied. I ended the call and stepped back out into the bullpen to speak to Miranda.
“You need to get him to the hospital.” I nodded toward Howard. “I told emergency services he wasn’t here anymore. If he’s gone by the time the ambulance gets here, then they won’t have to know I’m a liar.”
Howard and Naomi both turned to look at me with surprised expressions.
“Thank you, Agent Castillo,” Howard mumbled, unable to look me directly in the eyes as he did.
“Whatever,” I huffed. “Just go already. I need to focus on Fiona.”
I turned and walked away before he could say anything else. I wasn’t going to pretend that I wasn’t angry at him. If he’d gone crazy as a result of taking rush, then it was highly likely that he’d taken it deliberately. It was a designer party drug, after all. It wasn’t like he could have accidentally taken it. Even if he hadn’t explicitly meant to hurt Fiona, he still had, and as a direct result of his own stupid actions.
Ever since I’d met Howard, I’d always suspected there was something off about him. He was always very twitchy and nervous, and he spent all his time sitting in that dark lab of his and never hung out or chatted with the rest of us. I’d wondered to myself on more than one occasion if he was taking drugs or doing something else sketchy. Heck, there were times he just wouldn’t show up to work, but no one else said anything about it, so I didn’t bring it up either. It seemed like such a nasty accusation to make of someone when I didn’t have solid proof, so I kept my mouth shut. Now, as I looked around at the destruction he’d wreaked on the office, I wished I hadn’t.
“Hey,” I called as I walked back into Nelson’s office. “Ambulance should be here any minute. Naomi is taking Nelson to the hospital, too, by the way.”
“That’s good,” she smiled. “I hope they can do something. Most of the other people who’ve taken the cough syrup died, right?”
“It wasn’t the cough syrup,” I informed her as I dug through my work bag to retrieve the baggy I’d taken from Penny earlier. “I’m fairly certain it was this. Naomi and I found out about it just today. A new designer drug called rush coincidentally has all the same side effects as the tainted cough syrup. It also, coincidentally, first appeared in Las Vegas three months ago, right around the time when the first attacks were occurring.”
“So it’s being distributed via multiple avenues?” Nelson asked, the alarm clear in his voice.
“I’m not sure,” I shrugged as I handed him the bag so he could examine it. “Naomi and I had literally just learned about it when Fiona called to tell us that Howard had gone nuts on you. We didn’t really have time to discuss it. The girl we spoke to, Penny, told us that it suddenly disappeared off the street but that peop
le could still find it if they really wanted to.”
“Alright,” Nelson nodded. “We need to call Wallace and let him know what’s going on. He’s out collaborating with the police right now, but he needs to come back. If we’re dealing with two sources, then we need to rethink our strategy.”
“Okay,” I agreed before turning to look at Fiona. “I’ll call Charlie and Junior, then. This might help them in finding the distributor, and they should probably know about what happened with Howard, too.”
“Do you have to tell them?” Fiona groaned. “Junior’s going to freak out.”
“Yeah, understandably,” I retorted. “And I kind of do. Even if I left that part out, surely they’d put things together once they come back and find Nelson in the hospital and all the office stuff wrecked.”
“I know, I know,” she grumbled. “Just downplay how bad it is, at least? I don’t want him getting distracted while he’s working.”
“Fine.” I rolled my eyes as I went to call Charlie. Junior would ask too many questions.
“Oh, hey,” Charlie replied almost immediately. “I was just about to call Wallace. Is everything okay?”
“Not really, no,” I replied. “Wait, why were you about to call Wallace? Is everything okay with you?”
“Just a bus-jacking,” Charlie replied sarcastically. “No big deal. Anyway, what’s going on there?”
I was stunned into silence for a moment. Had I really heard him say bus-jacking? I was pretty sure he and Junior had only been in Ireland for a few hours at this point. How exactly had that happened?
“It’s Agent Howard,” I answered honestly. I decided there was no sense beating around the bush. “We have some new information about the drug. It isn’t just in the cough syrup.”
19
Charlie
I knocked on Junior’s door early the following morning. After everything was said and done with the police, it had been past midnight. Then there was the fact that Miranda had called to inform us that one of our own had fallen victim to the drug and had gone on a rampage which included an attack on Fiona. In the end, I’d only gotten a few hours of sleep, and I suspected that Junior probably hadn’t fared much better. Still, we had a job to do, and we needed to meet up with the police to get our investigation started.
I knocked again and glanced out the hallway window as I waited for a response. Our rooms were on the third floor, and the window granted me a lovely view of the city. The day was overcast, which wasn’t unusual for Ireland. Nelson had mentioned before we left that Ireland was a generally cold and rainy country, and even during the summer, peak temperatures didn’t usually venture above the high sixties. It was currently October, which meant that the weather would probably hover around the fifties for most of the day. He’d warned us to pack layers and a raincoat.
I didn’t mind the weather. As I looked out at the overcast street, I felt as though I’d been transported back in time into some noir detective film. The tall buildings were casting mysterious-looking shadows along the street, and the Halloween decorations that had been set along the buildings only added to the spooky atmosphere. I’d never liked hot weather, anyway. In the cold, it was easy to bundle up or light a fire, but in the heat, all you could do was put up with the force of the sun bearing down mercilessly on you, eyes stinging and clothes sticking uncomfortably to your back.
Plus, all that rain meant that the countryside was rich with lush foliage and flowers, which was where we would be heading if Junior ever decided to come out of his room. I was about to pound on the door again when I heard footsteps approaching me from down the hall.
“Oh, you’re up,” Junior called as he turned the corner and stepped into view. He was fully dressed and holding two cups of coffee. “I was about to check to see if you were ready. I got some coffee.”
I took the proffered drink from him and drank it down. It was hot and very strong and gave me just the jolt I needed to feel fully awake after getting such little sleep.
“How long have you been up?” I asked as I took another sip of coffee. I was sure he’d be just as groggy and tired as I was this morning, but he looked fully awake and alert.
“About an hour,” he admitted. “Maybe a little more. I actually couldn’t sleep much at all.”
I frowned at his words. I could understand he was concerned, but I couldn’t afford to go on a mission with a partner who wasn’t operating at one hundred percent.
“Miranda said Fiona was fine,” I attempted to reassure him. “They were just heading to the hospital as a precaution.” I really wasn’t sure how honest Miranda was being when she told me that, but there was no sense in pointing that out to Junior.
“I know,” Junior sighed. “That’s not the only thing I’m worried about, to be completely honest.”
“What else is bothering you?” I asked as I led the way toward the elevators.
“The injury in my shoulder,” he responded as he moved his free hand up to the spot where he’d been shot a few months ago. “Last night, with the busjacker, I couldn’t hold my gun steady. It’s been acting up for the past few weeks, but it’s never been this bad before. After he turned around and started shooting at you, I couldn’t get a shot on him because my arm wouldn’t stop shaking. I was too worried that I’d end up hitting you or the driver.”
A beat of silence passed between us as I took in everything he had just said.
“Damn,” I sighed. This wasn’t good. Junior and I had worked as partners for a year now, and I trusted him to have my back. However, it was difficult to entrust your life to someone who had just admitted they were having trouble aiming their gun.
I would have been lying if I’d said I wasn’t a little irritated at Junior. Clearly, he’d noticed that something was wrong but hadn’t said anything about it. It wasn’t like there was anything we could do about it at the moment, either. We were already in Ireland, so we needed to move forward with the mission despite whatever issues he was having. At the same time, I could understand his hesitation to speak up. Harry had been forced into early retirement by an injury that left him unable to perform his duties the way he used to. Junior was still in his mid-twenties, and getting a career-ending injury so young would be devastating.
“We’ll just have to deal with it,” I asserted. Ultimately, Junior was my partner, and I was going to have his back. We’d worry about everything else after we accomplished our current mission.
“Right,” Junior smiled sadly. He seemed relieved that I wasn’t angry at him, but I could tell he was upset by the turn of events.
We made our way down to the lobby, and I gulped down the rest of my coffee before disposing of the empty cup in a trash can. I didn’t like walking around without my hands free. It was a paranoid habit, but one that had saved my life on more than one occasion.
“The police station is only a five-minute walk away,” Junior informed me as he checked the address on his phone. I nodded in response and let him lead the way. The city looked different down here than it had up on the third floor of the hotel. From the ground, everything appeared to loom over me, though not in a threatening way. It was a little strange, as an American, to see so many massive buildings jammed so tightly together. It would make catching a suspect pretty easy, though, considering there were no alleyways or tiny crevices for them to slip into.
The architecture of the city was beautiful as well. I was so used to the drab gray and white concrete and steel of Las Vegas. Dublin was awash in color, as all the buildings were made of red and tan brick that speckled along the walls in alternating patterns. Once in a while, we would pass a storefront painted bright purple or red. Up on the higher floors, multicolored flags and plants hung out of windows or off brightly colored window sills. Even the smooth black cobblestones beneath our feet were more charming than the gray asphalt we had back at home.
We had to walk over the Ha’Penny Bridge to get to the police station, a pedestrian-only bridge constructed of wrought-iron and painted stark
white.
“It used to cost half a penny to cross,” Junior informed me as we crossed the thin bridge. It was clearly a popular tourist destination, as the bridge was crowded with people stopping to take photos of the wide river on either side. “Back when it was built in the early eighteen-hundreds. Obviously, it’s free to cross now, but the name stuck.”
I chuckled a little at the thought of naming something after its own admission price and wondered what common American landmarks might be called today if the people who constructed them had done the same. Maybe instead of the Statue of Liberty, we’d have the “two-dollar statue,” or something like that.
“I think this is it,” Junior remarked uncertainly just a few minutes after we’d crossed the bridge. We were standing in front of what looked like a giant castle. The massive building spanned two entire blocks and was entirely made of large gray stones. The main entrance was located beneath a sloping stone arch, and there were spires and chimneys along the entire length of the roof.
“Pearse Street Garda Station,” I read off a sign posted by the entry. “This is definitely it.”
“Pretty impressive for a police station,” Junior remarked as he looked up at the towering building in awe. Even I had to admit that working in a castle every day did seem cool.
As we stepped inside, however, the illusion was quickly broken. The inside of the police station was, of course, just as modern as any other police station I’d ever been in.
After we stepped through its doors, it wasn’t immediately apparent where we should go. There wasn’t any reception area or even many people around, and I wondered if we’d come in through the wrong entrance. A uniformed officer finally crossed our paths as we ventured a little further into the station.
“Can I help you, gentlemen?” he asked cautiously. I didn’t blame him since, from his perspective, we were two unidentified men blindly roaming the police station.
“We’re Agents Chapman and Hills,” I answered as I pulled my badge out of my jacket pocket. “With the Military Border Liaison Investigative Services. We’re supposed to meet some officers here about collaborating on an international drug trafficking case.”
